|
AIM Autosport capped the 2007 Star
Mazda Championship season with two top finishes in the season finale at Mazda
Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif. Devin Cunningham of St-Bruno, Qué., and
Robert Thorne of Sherman, Conn., kept the AIM cars in the top third of the field
through the caution-shortened 24-lap race.
Thorne qualified AIM's No. 38 Pro
Formula Mazda 11th on the 35-car grid, with a lap time of one minute
21.199 seconds on the 2.238-mile road course. He gained one position on the
first lap of the race, dropped back mid-race, then moved up two places to finish
ninth.
"The race was pretty interesting.
Not much went on other than just trying to hold my position," he said. "I knew I
could keep whoever was behind me, behind me, so I was just working on trying to
move forward. With the cautions, everything bunched back up, so we could have
another run at it. The cautions were a helping hand, although they shortened up
the race so much that I didn't get to do what I wanted to
do."
Cunningham started the No. 33
Discovery Channel Canada Mazda from 12th on the grid, based on his
qualifying lap of 1:21.248. He was tagged
on the first lap, collected debris on his tires and slipped off course. He then
had to charge back from 25th place, slowed by four caution periods.
He finished 11th.
"We didn't get a great start – there
was a bit of a slinky action coming out of turn 11 [on the pace lap]. I made it
through turn one and unfortunately, we were taken out. There's not much you can
do when that happens," he said. "The AIM Autosport team did a fantastic job, as
you can see in the lap times and the fact that we moved from 25th to
11th place. It was a tough race, but it was great to see how quick
the car was and how well the team worked."
Cunningham finished his rookie Star
Mazda season seventh in the driver championship. AIM Autosport was fifth in team
standings.
|
News 
